We were talking a little politics at lunch today, and one of my co-workers turned to me and said, "I like my small little world." He, in essence, was trying to get us to stop talking about politics and the world at large because it was upsetting him.

…I’m listening to is a discussion of sports…People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it’s plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that…They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it’s at a level of superficiality that’s beyond belief…

-Noam Chompsky

I think it involves, in some respect, the concept of engaging or disengaging with the world around you. Sports is a way to disengage from the world, an escape (not that that is a bad thing per say). Politics involves engaging the world, but to do so you have to look some hard truths in the eye. Unfortunately, I believe we live in a society that does not like to look at the hard truths…